OPPO K1 First Impressions: Display and Selfie camera stands out

OPPO K1 is priced at just Rs. 16,990 and will sell exclusively on Flipkart.com.

OPPO recently announced a new mid-range smartphone series in the Indian market. The first smartphone under the new K series is OPPO K1, which goes on sale today on Flipkart.com. OPPO K1 is the most affordable smartphone with an in-screen fingerprint scanner. Priced at Rs. 16,990, OPPO K1 also offers a 25MP selfie camera, a dedicated microSD card slot and features a dual-lens rear camera setup. It fights the highly popular Xiaomi Redmi Note series handsets, even Xiaomi Mi A1, Honor 10 Lite and Nokia's sub 20K smartphones. Let's find out what's good and what's not good about this new smartphone from the Chinese smartphone manufacturer.

Most affordable smartphone with an In-Screen Fingerprint Scanner

Let's start with the highlight feature of OPPO K1, which is also the X factor of this handset. OPPO K1 is the most affordable smartphone with an in-screen fingerprint scanner. This can be a feature to flaunt and might give you some attention but the fingerprint scanner is not of the best quality we have seen so far. It was quite easy to setup the in-screen fingerprint scanner but it failed to unlock the handset quite often during our short testing with the device. There's also a noticeable delay in unlocking the handset.

The company has also offered Face unlock but it might not be very secure as it is essentially driven by the software and does not have dedicated hardware to support it.

Capable 25MP Selfie Camera

OPPO K1 flaunts a 25MP selfie camera, which was able to capture good images during our testing. The camera works on F/2.0 aperture and can also create a software-driven bokeh effect. Images looked crisp and showed good detailing. You also get a variety of filters and modes to improve the selfie output. The camera also uses AI to help you make the most out of massive 25MP selfie shooter. Some images can look animated as AI gets pretty harsh sometimes. Thankfully, you can control the beautification level via on-screen controls. The front camera can record videos in 1080p resolution.

Vibrant AMOLED Display

While the highlights of OPPO K1 are the in-screen fingerprint scanner and 25mp selfie camera, I found the 6.4-inch Full HD+ AMOLED screen to be the best feature of this handset. OPPO K1 flaunts a Waterdrop notch and offers a very good screen-to-body ratio. The display is slightly reflective but it still makes for a very good panel in this price-point. As it is an AMOLED panel, the videos and games will offer an immersive viewing experience. The screen is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5, which is an added bonus.

Rear camera: No EIS, No Slow-motion capture but records in 4K

As far as the rear camera is considered, OPPO K1 sports a 16MP + 2 MP dual-lens rear camera setup with AI beautification. The camera can record 4K videos but sadly EIS is not supported. The camera seemed snappy and image output also looked good. The camera supports HDR and the app also offers a number of filters to let you experiment with the shots you capture. The rear camera lets you control the AI Beautification level as per your preference. Besides, you get Portrait mode, Time-lapse, Stockers, Manual mode but sadly there's no built-in Slow-motion mode in OPPO K1.

Design: Eye-catchy design but feels cheap in hands

Like most of the smartphones these days, OPPO K1 also comes in a 3D Gradient design. You can choose between two colors- Vivianite Blue and Graphite Black. The smartphone looks appealing and the gradient colors make it quite eye-catchy, but the handset fails to give a premium in-hand feel. The quality of material used to design OPPO K1 feels cheap and the glossy back panel makes OPPO k1 quite slippery. Moreover, due to the big 6.4-inch screen, OPPO K1 is not a perfect fit for one-hand operation. The closest rivals- Redmi Note 6 Pro, Xiaomi Mi A2 and Nokia 7.1 Plus feel far premium than OPPO K1.

OPPO K1 is backed by a capable but an underclocked Snapdragon 660 CPU which is combined with 4GB RAM + 64GB internal memory. The handset felt snappy and responsive; however, we are yet to test the handset for its gaming, processing and multitasking performance. The smartphone is powered by a decently sized 3,600 mAh battery unit which in numbers is not as par with the rival devices like Asus Zenfone Max Pro M2 and Redmi Note 6 Pro. But the choice of AMOLED screen might work in OPPO K1's favor. There's no Type C port and the handset also does not support fast-charging, which is a big letdown. What's good here is the dedicated microSD card support. You can use two nano SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time.

Software- Dated Android Oreo and highly animated ColorOS

Another disappointment is the dated Android 8.1 Oreo which is accompanied by OPPO's ColorOS 5.2 Operating System. The ColorOS is not our favorite skin as it comes across as highly animated and full of many unwanted apps and software tweaks which might prove as a deal-breaker if you prefer a clean stock Android UI.

Verdict

OPPO K1 has some really good features to offer at Rs. 17k price-point, but the smartphone is not free of disappointments. It boasts a vibrant AMOLED panel which houses an in-screen fingerprint scanner. There's dedicated microSD card support and a capable 25MP selfie shooter. Sadly, there's no Type C port, no fast-charging, dated Android Oreo and the chipset used is an underclocked version of Snapdragon 660. It's too early to give a verdict on the real-life performance of OPPO K1. We will stress test the device to find out its multitasking, battery, gaming and camera performance. Stay tuned on Gizbot.com.

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